


The Ones Who Disappoint You The Most

by MyrddinDerwydd



Series: Inktober 2017 - Dragon Age [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Betrayal, Blood Magic, Camping, Dalish Elves, Dalish Keepers, Death, Family, Halla (Dragon Age), Inktober, Inktober 2017, M/M, Magic, Solavellan, Taverns, Wine, being drugged, pavellan - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 13:06:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12458412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyrddinDerwydd/pseuds/MyrddinDerwydd
Summary: Inktober 29 Prompt: Betrayal, Betrayal, CampSummary: Inquisitor Elisara Tarael Lavellan and Dorian share an evening of melancholy and discovery over wine. Setting is post-Revelations & Inquisitor’s judgement of Thom Ranier/Blackwall, at Skyhold.I knew this was going to be a bit dark before I started. It's just a conversation though, not any graphic descriptions.WARNINGS: Discussions of betrayal, violence, blood magic, death, near-death experiences, sex, relationships, manipulation, drugging someone, mind control, revenge.Writing Masterpost, organized by main character.





	The Ones Who Disappoint You The Most

Dorian took a long, slow pull on his cup of mulled wine. It was another Orlesian red, full and sweet, with the sharp bite of the Inquisitor’s personal mix of spices nipping at his senses. His long legs were stretched out beneath the table, resting on the rungs of Elisara’s stool. Her own legs were folded beneath her, and he never ceased to wonder how she stayed on her seat like that. 

“Do you still trust Blackwall, after all of this?” He sighed pensively, considering the trail of betrayal that had plagued the majority of his own life. 

Elisara gave a quick, sharp nod. “I do. I would have told you if I didn’t, Dorian.” There was no hesitation, no doubt in her voice. 

“So sure of yourself, no matter the bizarre machinations the world throws out, aren’t you?” He smirked at her, shaking his head, but only half his mind was on the so-called warden’s recent revelations.

“You know that isn’t true. Honestly though, don’t your instincts tell you the same thing?” Her gaze was intense, boring into him in the dim lighting of the second floor of The Herald’s Rest. 

He stewed on that thought for a long moment, gazing blindly over the railing. Elli’s decisions were based on much more than just gut feeling, he knew, but he’d often had to screen his true feelings behind silk walls of charm. Too often, people tried to change him when they saw behind the crimson shimmer of magic and the hypocritical influence of House Pavus. He understood the motives behind this particular set of lies quite well. Ranier wanted to change who he was, to become someone who did the right thing instead of grinding others beneath their sodden boots. 

The two of them didn’t exactly get along, but at least half the reason was because both kept waving each other’s preconceptions around like naughty smallclothes. He respected what the hairy lummox wanted to do - atoning for what he’d done by giving of himself. It seemed he had spent the better part of the past decade doing just that, despite his distaste for the society he fought so valiantly to protect. ‘People like you. People who talk... and judge,’ Blackwall had said once. He’d never really accepted that Dorian’s reasons for being here were nearly identical to his own. 

“The man he wants to be has more honor and integrity than most of Minrathous and Val Royeaux combined.” Dorian’s voice held a smooth, dangerous edge when he finally spoke. “There’s only one real difference between why he and I are fighting.”

Elisara raised one blonde eyebrow at him as he met her gaze. “Oh?” 

“Blackwall’s fighting himself, too.” A pang of sorrow and oddly poignant fury shot through him as he thought of his father. “Is that worse than fighting your family? I’m not sure.” His half-hearted laugh was bitter, and he took another drink of the wine.

“Blackwall wants people to hate who he was - a captain who betrayed his own men for personal gain. He hates Thom Ranier.” The Inquisitor’s eyes were hard, a sharp contrast to her messy braid and simple clothing. “You still need to accept that you don’t deserve the hate you’ve been mired in by your countrymen. Neither of you are bad people, and I’d have been a pretty shitty elf if I had let prejudice and hatred keep you from doing what’s right, regardless of your pasts.” 

Dorian’s smile was genuine and warm. “I’ve had a lot of help with that recently, thanks to you and Hallen. My father’s betrayal chased me halfway across Thedas, into the arms of someone who I care about...” He trailed off, glancing away from her. It still made him uneasy to speak openly of how deeply he cared for Hallen. Elli smiled knowingly; she knew him too well. 

“Someone who’s not an egotistical, self-centered Magister,” he continued after a moment. “Have I ever told you about that first year? I nearly died at least a thousand times.” Dorian refilled his glass of wine and beckoned imperatively at the Inquisitor’s cup with an elegant sweep of his fingers. 

“Did he really send soldiers after you?” She seemed skeptical or amused as she passed him her cup, he wasn’t quite sure which. Perhaps a little of both...

“More than that, but it was the camping that nearly killed me.” Ah, that laugh. He enjoyed being a source of happiness for his dearest friends, and loved the way Elli tossed back kindness and saucy retorts in equal measure. She was the closest friend he'd had in a very, very long time.

“I’ll be certain not to tell Iron Bull that the Qunari could defeat Tevinter by simply setting the local wildlife on you.” Predictably, she was still grinning widely. “I’m shocked to hear you didn’t become the patron saint of every inn between here and the Imperium.” Dorian passed back her wine, and she settled against the railing before wrapping one arm around her upraised knee and taking a sip.

“Survival my dear, pure and simple. You’d have never heard of me if I had. Innkeepers were easy for my father to bribe, but my abrupt descent into poverty had no effect on the weather at all.”

“Heat? Bears? Was it a dreadfully dirty swamp like the Fallow Mire?”

“ ‘Yes’ seems too simple an answer, however true.” He drank deeply at the memory of the thick northern air, dense evening fog masking the eerie sounds of varghest and quillback. “I joke with Hallen about climbing trees, you know, but I wish there had been more of them. Sleepless nights are no one’s friend, especially if you’re on the morning menu.” 

“It’s hard to imagine you camping on your own, Dorian. You barely know how to set up a tent, even now!” She shook her head incredulously, tugging her long braid over her shoulder as they talked. 

“I am not ashamed to admit how much I relied on my magic, at times even for the simplest of needs. I’ve learned far more from you and Blackwall about camping than I did then.” He stared idly out over the tavern again, and shivered. He’d ironically battled hypothermia in the hot Drylands of Antiva because of a rather ill-considered decision to build a shelter out of ice. “How does freezing to death in a desert sound, on a list of terrible ways to die?”

“Fair to middling, honestly. We lost one of our hunters on Brandel’s Reach when I was 17. He was catching fish, and slipped on the rocks. He likely hit his head, and the fall snapped his back. Barely conscious, wedged into the surf crashing brutally against the shore, he was still trapped when the tide rose.” 

Elli looked saddened, but less bothered by the dark memories than Dorian had been. She continued after another drink and a long sigh, green eyes melancholy. He found it interesting to hear another story that had likely shaped her into the wise, fierce woman he knew. 

“Vethari was alive when I found him, hours later. He’d watched his legs eaten by sharpmouths, blood draining slowly from him, drifting in the water like smoke on the breeze. He couldn’t move, and was barely coherent enough to speak.” 

Horror filled him, and he tasted the wine again in the back of his throat. He covered his mouth, which had dropped open in shock, and sat his cup on the rough wooden table. 

“ ‘Ma ghilana, Falon’Din. Ma ghilana mir din’an.’ He chanted it over and over, a mantra of death for his hours in the sea. ‘Guide me, Falon’Din. Guide me into death.’ ” Elisara’s slim lips twisted into a sad smile, her sharp elven ears silhouetted by the lantern’s light. 

“So I did.” 

She took a long drink of her wine as Dorian stared, the stark reality of Elisara’s younger years drifting on her quiet words like so much blood in the water.

“No one betrayed Vethari though, not even the sharpmouths that ate him. Deshanna had that idea well under her control.”

“Really?” Dorian started at the sudden reversal to traitorous family. He recognized Deshanna as Hallen and Elisara’s recent Keeper, though both typically avoided talking about her at all. “You have a worse story than that all wrapped up and ready to tell?”

She raised one eyebrow at him and downed the rest of her wine. “Mmmm. It’s nice that wine is easier to get here, makes talking about this easier.” Elli continued as he bemusedly refilled her cup. “Why do you think I rarely share stories while we travel? No one wants to hear about hunting, or old ruins, and half of the other stories I have are miserably awkward.”

“Well do tell, or I’ll never know why Hallen despises her so.” His Amatus was adept at subtly steering the conversation away from Clan Lavellan’s last Keeper before the tragedy near Wycome. It wasn’t just elven secrets either, as he spoke quite readily of Elisara’s father, the Keeper during their youth. 

Elli sighed, shifting back to sit cross-legged on the stool. She had been drinking a fair bit more than usual tonight, trying to decompress and settle back to normal after the events surrounding Halamshiral and Val Royeaux. 

“I shouldn’t tell you about this.” 

“...Of course you should! Who would appreciate your sordid tale of death and betrayal more than I?” Dorian prodded encouragingly when she didn’t continue. He’d consumed half the bottle of wine with her, but he was also half again her weight. Elisara was solidly built for an elf, but smooth and tough, like the arboreal cats of the northern jungles.

She held his eyes, clearly considering, and he was again struck by how the brilliant green of her branching vallaslin matched her eyes. Solas was one lucky elf, to have someone so impressively wise and beautiful. The thought prompted a mental image of his own lover, whose mahogany vallaslin curled across his dark skin in a magnificent mimicry of the halla he loved. 

“A clan’s Keeper should be the elf most trusted among the People. Deshanna Ismathoriel was not, and never should have been.” 

Her voice often took on a bit of a rounded, lilting tone when she spoke of her clan, and the corner of Dorian’s mouth turned up in a small smile as he settled in to listen. 

“Not only did she betray my clan by constantly manipulating our minds and striking deals with shem’len that treated us like walking garbage, she betrayed Hallen and I very personally.” Her green eyes hardened to flinted emerald as she continued, as fierce as on the battlefield. “I know that Hallen has never told you of what I intend to share, and he likely never will. He barely has vague memories of what happened, and I see no reason to change that.” 

“Why tell me?” He couldn’t help himself, he had to ask. It was far too dramatic an introduction to hold back now.

“Because you care for each other, and I do not want you to underestimate his strength. Our childhood was comfortable and reasonably nomadic, quite typical for the Dalish. Clan Lavellan shifted between four locations near the Waking Sea, and we had an uneasy but workable relationship with the human settlements nearby. Keeper Revas was both a wonderful father and a strong, reliable Keeper.”

“Hallen also speaks well of your family, and I have heard no ill word toward his own parents either. His mother tended the clan’s halla, yes?” Elisara nodded, and he smiled in fond remembrance of Hallen’s attachment to a particular long woolen coat whorled with the subtle pattern of halla horns.

“Dhavhalla and Souren were surprised that Hallenon had magical talent, but were quiet pastoral people, always supportive of him and of the clan.” Her soft smile turned bitter and she swirled her wine pensively. “Deshanna was the First, and led the clan once my father’s spirit crossed the veil.” 

Elisara’s green eyes were sharp as she caught his gaze. “Blood mages are not the only ones twist the minds of others. In her arrogance and self-interest, she gained much influence over the younger elves. On the surface she was simply charming and manipulative, but she regularly took the subtle control over magic that she learned from my father and turned it on the elves of our clan.” 

“Hallenon was one of the few able to protect himself directly, as he had carefully guarded his mind since his youngest days… I think as a child he feared demons could come for him at anytime.” The corner of her mouth turned up in a wry smile. “I was gone from the clan so much in the first few years that Deshanna had little opportunity to toy with me. There was something subtly off about many of my clan mates when I returned, like the pull of a twisted arrow shaft. That unease and Hallen’s steadfast strength gave me an edge over her magic.”

“It became a battle of wits over the years, with a handful of us evading her and trying to break her hold over the other elves. Perhaps we should have just forced her hand… an obvious assault on one of us might have shook them free.” 

He scowled as Elli spoke. “She was destroying your clan from the inside?” 

“Controlling, not destroying. Most of them didn’t even know Deshanna was doing anything, and just took the changes in stride. She hated both of us bitterly, but it twisted in her gut like rancid meat that she had no hold at all over the daughter of the previous Keeper. Hallen was effectively her apprentice, as First of the clan, and about 5 years ago she apparently decided that exploiting our friendship was the best course of action.”

Dorian’s eyebrows shot up. “I can’t see that ending well, not with the man I know.” Their own relationship had nearly ended the day it began, as a result of Hallen’s fear that Dorian would exploit elves and other mages using knowledge he had shared about magical auras. 

“Not with both of us aware of her machinations, no. Hallen wasn’t interested in anyone else either, and I had been as a sister to him since he was wobbling around the camp like a newborn halla.” She sighed, shoulders stiff with old anger despite her wine-eased state. 

“So, she drugged us.” 

Dorian nearly spat out the sip of wine he’d just taken. 

“She _what?_ ” 

“She drugged my wineskin with an aphrodisiac, knowing we’d both drink from it, and sent us out to scout a nearby ruin.” Elli downed the last of her wine, and the cup hit the table more forcefully than usual. “You can guess how well that went with Hallen, given his non-existent sex life before he met you, Dorian.”

“Rather unpredictably.” Hallen had been utterly inexperienced, but not naive. He gave Elli an uneasy look as he considered one potential reason why. “He also quite clearly said that the two of you were never lovers...”

“We weren’t, not even that once,” she reassured him. “He ended up bleary and miserably aroused, out of his mind with confusion at why he wanted to kiss me so badly… which made him drink more wine. The more insistent he became, the more I realized that I was dealing with the same nonsense from my own body. Luckily I’d felt similar effects before, and recognized that my head literally wasn’t in control.” 

“And?” He prompted after a brief pause, simmering with anger at the self-absorbed mage who had put them in such a situation. 

Elli shook her head, looking mildly amused. “Sorry, I just realized how similar my actions that night were to how Iron Bull describes sex under the Qun. I told Hallen that I thought we had been drugged, dumped out the wine, and gave him the release that he needed. ‘Popped his cork,’ as Bull put it.” The anger crept back into her normally kind expression, lips tightening as she continued. “I was so furious at Deshanna that I just ignored my own body and sat awake all night, stewing. Hallen was restless anyway, and would wake groaning and stiff every hour or so. Frustrating and exhausting don’t quite describe that night well enough… I’m still glad that he was with someone he trusted, or it would have been a lot worse.”

“How does Hallen not remember this?”

“He knows what happened, but between the wine, drugs, confusion, and lust he doesn’t remember the details. It just hardened his resolve to take control of the clan from Deshanna. For my part, I told her she’d never see the arrow coming if I ever caught her manipulating any of us again.”

“It’s a good thing your old Keeper is already dead.” Blood magic or not, he would stand against anyone willing to abuse and disrespect people to such an extent. 

Elli gave him a quick, fierce grin, green eyes shining in approval.


End file.
